Glass S X 

Book B a J 

Gopyiight]^" . 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The Joy of Work 



Fragments That Remain 



Sermons^ Addresses^ Prayers of 
MALTBIE DAVENPORT BAB COCK 

Reported and arranged by 
JESSIE B. GOETSCHIUS 

" These are faithful reproductions. Those 
familiar with Dr. Babcock's teaching will testify- 
to the excellence of these transcriptions." — 
J. R, Miller, 

" Though partial, these pages are priceless, 
and should be received as broken fragments of 
a matchless message." — The Presbyterian. 

The spiritual and devotional tone of it all 
can hardly be rated too high." — The West- 
minster, 

" Will preserve the flavor at least of that rare 
personality and message." — Advance, 

" Full of Dr. Babcock's beautiful spirit, and 
breathes his practical wisdom." — Christian En- 
deavor World, 



l2mo. Cloth, Gilt Top, net $1.2^ 



The Joy of Work 



Reprinted chapters froiii 
^'^Fragvients that Remam 
fro 7)1 the 7?ii7iistry of 



MALTBIE DAVENPORT BABCOCK 



Reported and arranged by 
JESSIE B. GOETSCHIUS 




New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 
London and Edinburgh 



Copyright, 1907* iQio, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue 
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 




C CIA2S0950 




Contents 



I. Work : A Spiritual Necessity 7 

II. Work: A Social Grace . .21 

III. The One Talent Man . 33 



5 



The three chapters comprising this little book 
are taken from the larger volume Fragments that 
Remain/' which comprises a number of Dr. Babcock's 
sermons reproduced from notes preserved by one of 
his listeners. These notes were made with no thought 
of publication, but were given to the public eventually 
because no other volume of Dr. Babcock's sermons 
had been published. 

J. B. G. 



I 

WORK: A SPIRITUAL NECES- 
SITY 



Thou hast made Thy laws firm and stringent, for 
Thou wouldst not have us triflers and idlers. May 
we learn that one reason why we suffer is that others, 
looking at us, may learn how to suffer, 

My Father worketh hitherto, and I work^ — 
John v. 17. 



I 



Work: A Spiritual Necessity 

I AM concerned with the divinity of toil. 
I want to show, if possible, that toil — 
all honest toil — is the reflection of the 
activity of God our Father and the Lord 
Jesus Christ. While the Jews were trifling 
over what a mm n^ay "io on the Sabbath, 
Christ was working in glorious imitation of, 
and obedience to, His Father. Whence 
zomes the feeling that it is lowering to work ; 
that it is far more exalted to draw the purple 
robes of our idleness about us, and be waited 
on ? The Chinese noble lets his finger nails 
grow into long, horny, horrid talons to prove 
to the world that he is not a craftsman, that 
he never handles tools. We have a feeling 
of disgust for that, but is there not in the 
minds of some of us a subcutaneous sym- 
pathy with him ? 

This feeling that work is ignoble does not 
come from God. He works ; and when, in 
olden times. He would choose men for His 



10 



THE JOY OF WORK 



own special commissions, He called a David 
from his flock, or a Saul from his farm, or a 
Gideon from his threshing-floor. To the 
Church at Antioch He said, Separate Me 
Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I 
have called them/' Right from their daily 
work He called them. Did He choose idlers ? 
Certainly not — He had work to be done. 

The idea does not come from Christ. He 
works, too. His life was ceaseless activity — 
no leisure, so much as to eat. In art. He is 
represented as gentle, in the sense of being 
effeminate and weak. Weak ? Never 1 
After His agony in the Garden, that great 
cry on the cross from His broken heart could 
never have been the cry of a weak man. 
I His whole life trained Him for strength. 
He handled the saw and the plane ; He 
made ploughshares and yokes; He could 
sleep in a storm. It is the glory of toil that 
His hands were hardened and calloused by 
labour. 

The idea does not come from the Apostles. 
Listen to PauPs strenuous rule for the idle 
Thessalonians : Whoso will not work, neither 
let him eat.'* 

It does not come from our first parents ; — 
they had a garden to take care of. Toil was 
not the curse on them, for they toiled^before 



A SPIRITUAL NECESSITY 11 



the Fall. The care of that garden must have 
been beautiful work. I have always hoped 
to be able to work in a garden myself, to 
work in honest dirt, to smell the soil as it 
smelt when I was a boy. I hope some time 
to do my work as a minister, and play in a 
garden. 

What is play ? What is the difference be- 
tween it and work ? Some one has said, 
" Play is activity as an end, and work is ac- 
tivity for an end.'^ There is a great differ- 
ence ; but note that both are forms of activity. 
Play should be a preparation for work, the 
leading of activity into right channels. There- 
fore, watch your children's games. Let their 
games be a help ; direct them ; don't let them 
be games of chance, for it gives them false 
ideas of life. Life is not chance, but a great 
system, social order, the interrelation of ac- 
tivities, — for this reason, keep your children 
from games of chance. Let them play ; play 
is good, — a sheep, a lamb, a kid, a dear little 
boy or girl,^ — it is good to see them play. 
But you? You should be at work. It is 
mental, moral, physical suicide for you to 
drop out of the ranks of the workers. 

But this idea that toil is ignoble must have 
originated somewhere. Perhaps it came from 
the old feudal system, where some were to 



12 



THE JOY OF WORK 



fight, and some were to stay at home and 
work ; and the glory gathered round the 
fighters. That was a very primitive state 
of society. It prevailed among the North 
American Indians — the braves went to war, 
or they hunted; and the squaws did the 
housework, the baking, the farming. This 
division, of those who work and those who 
war, prevails only in a most rudimentary 
social state ; but in a more refined form it 
obtains among us — the served and the serv- 
ant. It must be a part of the abnormal atti- 
tude of our fallen nature towards life. Any- 
thing abnormal — against the rule, out of 
place — has this same disturbing eflect on our 
conceptions. 

Whatever your social setting, find your 
work, and do it faithfully. Your Father and 
your Brother work. You get far more tired 
of what you have than of what you do. Just 
think of it, and see if it is not so. Industry 
without heart is productive of deadness, life- 
lessness. Activity is much, but it is not all. 
Combined with it must be consideration for 
others. There must be community of inter- 
est with others, and a sympathetic adjustment 
of our activities to them. Madame de Stael 
said that her idea of life was to be forever 
busy at what is worth while.'* Aristotle de- 



A SPIEITUAL NECESSITY 13 



fined life as energy in action." Be alive, 
and find out what form of activity will most 
worthily express your individuality ! And 
train your children to the same conception 
of life. 

I once had a friend send me some lines he 
had taken from a journal, with the request 
that when I reached the seaside, and the salt 
spray was making me tingle with life, I v/ould 
set them to music, as he would like his boys 
to learn to sing them. 

O hark ! for the hour is coming 

When your ears shall anointed be. 
Ay, listen ! 'Tis rising and swelling 

O'er populous land and sea. 
The morning stars began it 

At the dawn of Creation's birth ; 
And the circling spheres go swinging, 

And singing it unto earth. 
And earth shall forget her groaning, 

And learn the song of the spheres ; 
And the tired shall sing, that are moaning ; 

And the sad shall dry their tears. 

Chorus : — 

Blessed are they that work ! 
Blessed are they that work ! 
For they shall inherit the earth 
In the dawning day. 

'*Lo, the burden shall be divided, 
And each shall know his own ; 
And the royalty of manhood 

Shall be more than crown or throne ; 



14 



THE JOY OF WORK 



And the flesh and blood of toilers 

Shall no longer be less than gold; 
And never an honest life shall be 

Into hopeless bondage sold. 
For we, the people, are waking ; 

And high and low shall employ 
The splendid strength of union 

For liberty, life and joy ! 

For the song of the spheres is motion; 

And motion and toil are life ! 
And the idle shall fail and falter 

And yield at the end of strife. 
As the stars tread the path appointed, 

And the sun gives forth his heat, 
So the sons of men shall labour 

Ere they rest in leisure's seat. 
And the kings are to serve the people, 

And wealth is to ease the poor, 
And learning, to lift up the lowly, 

And strength, that the weak may endure." 

I venture to repeat too Kipling^s rugged 
sturdy lines. The poem would hardly be 
classed among religious poems, but it is 
strong and virile, and our Christian hym- 
nology is most wofully lacking in those 
characteristics. There is too much mere 
contemplation ; for heaven, and the life there, 
means vastly more than this. 

<'When earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes 
are twisted and dried, 
And the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest 
critic has died. 



A SPIRITUAL NECESSITY 15 

We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it — lie down 

for an aeon or two, 
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us 

to work anew ! 

And those that were good shall be happy : they shall 
sit in a golden chair ; 

They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes 
of comets' hair; 

They shall find real saints to draw from — Magda- 
lene, Peter and Paul; 

They shall work for an age at a sitting, and never 
be tired at all ! 

*^ And only the Master shall praise us, and only the 

Master shall blame; 
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall 

work for fame; 
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in 

his separate star. 
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It, for the God of 

Things as They Are ! ' ' 

Why doesn't some one put that sentiment 
into the form of a hymn that we could use in 
our churches ? It will be done. 

And there is that poem of Arthur Clough : — 
Travel west — put your girdle round the earth 
— dare, venture, achieve, — not for reward, but 
for the joy of the doing. 

Even in your body it is the activity and not 
the receptivity that is more essential. I am not 
sure of this — I have not thought it through, 
but I think it is right. Consider your digestive 
apparatus, its constant activity ; and if you 



16 



THE JOY OF WORK 



experience four hours of indigestion after 
each meal, you will need no argument to 
prove to you that its unnoticed activity is 
far more important than the few minutes of 
pleasurable receptivity. So with your lungs 
— but you think it out. 

O the joy of work ! The sense of self-mas- 
tery and the mastery of tools ! To feel the 
energy throbbing through you, and to know 
that you can control and guide that energy ! 
To know that you can make every bit of it 
worth while! Ah,'' you say, " if you knew 
what my life is, you would not say so. If 
you knew on what a low plane I must work ; 
how sordid, how uninteresting, how monoto- 
nous it is ! You don't know my life. Such 
work as mine cannot be uplifting, and you 
would not say it was if you knew." Yes, I 
would. I regret that the sky-line is shut out 
of so many lives. I arraign the social condi- 
tions that make it so. They should be ad- 
justed, and every man should be working 
towards that end. But be patient ! It is for 
such a little while ! Do the best you can 
where you are, or you will never be fitted for 
a higher or more responsible place. Use 
well the tool that is in your hand, and so 
prepare yourself to use a more delicate tool. 
It will be given to you as soon as you are 



A SPIRITUAL 



NECESSITY 



17 



fully able to handle it. God will find you if 
you are busy, just where and as He has 
found all His workers — where He had placed 
them. And He will promote you if you are 
worthy of promotion. He does not waste 
energy. He always puts force where it will 
tell most. 

I want to make three applications of this 
subject. Work fits us to know, and to grow, 
and to enjoy. 

I. Work fits us to know, — to know God, 
and to know ourselves, and to know life. 
After you have done your day's work, find 
some one whom you can help. It is a sure 
cure for skepticism. Not in any easy chair, 
not from a book, not from friends whom you 
admire, and who, in their turn, admire you, 
do you get forceful growth, but in activity for 
those in need. From these you get clearer 
views of life. No man so occupied ever 
doubts God or His goodness. It is easy to 
go to the club in the evening, but if you 
would seek out misery and suffering, you 
would have full assurance of the divine as 
you felt it throbbing through you. Yes, you 
have a right to yourselves, to selfness, that is, 
to self-preservation, but not to the extent of 
disregarding the needs of others. Use your 
leisure in such a way as to prepare you for 



18 THEJOYOFWORK 



more effective work. See what Gladstone 
did — after his days of hard labour, way into 
his old age— he sought out the poor of Lon- 
don, and went to them with help and cheer 
and counsel. Suppose at fifty he had said, 
" I have done my work ; now I will rest^' — 
then never that long life and full energy ; 
never that crown of snowy glory ! 

II. Wholesome work makes us grow. 
Grown-up people understand the develop- 
ment of muscle, but children may not, and I 
would like to explain it with sufficient sim- 
plicity for them. You move your arm, and 
the muscle is used up little by little with 
every motion, and drifts off in a fine dust, 
and floats away on the rivers of the veins. 
Then you take a long breath of fresh air, and 
the blood, which by that time has reached 
the lungs, is purified and sent back to the 
heart. And the heart, by its steady action — 
pump, pump, pump, — sends it back to the 
very place where the waste, the use, was ; 
and the arm is built up again by tiny, dust- 
like particles. Or, if the need is elsewhere, 
then to that place the particles are sent. 
When you think hard, the head gets red, be- 
cause the blood is carrying its fresh matter 
there, where, just then, the need is most tre- 
mendous. 



A SPIRITUAL NECESSITY 19 



So in the spiritual life. Use, and you will 
grow. Where you spend, you will be sup- 
plied ; where you give, you will have it re- 
turned to you, good measure, shaken to- 
gether, pressed down, and running over. If 
you do not use, you dwindle, as the unused 
muscle does. 

III. Activity gives us the power to enjoy. 
Would you rather sing, or hear singing? 
Well, it would depend ! But, all things be- 
ing equal, the joy comes with the doing. 
Would you rather paint, or pay the admis- 
sion fee to see a painting? O, the joy of be- 
ing able to express one's self in colours ! 
Would you rather do, or have some one do 
for you — rather minister, or be ministered 
unto ? 

God does not say, Well thought ! 
though thought is often activity for Him ; 
nor, ''Well said!'' though a true word, 
bravely spoken, is often loving service for 
Him : but He looks at all from the point of 
work, and says, '* Well done ! enter into the 
joy of your Lord." 

Doing service for some of His little ones 
about you, — for our earth-life cannot be Hved 
in heaven, but must be lived in the world, if 
it is to be lived for Him — that is the way 
Christ lived, when He and His Father worked. 



II 

WORK: A SOCIAL GRACE 



May what we receive to-day injluetice what we 
to-morrow y and make some one yearn for Thy gift.^ 

" My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.'*^ 
John v. 17. 



II 



Work: A Social Grace 

RUSKIN says : Life without industry 
is sin ; industry without art is bru- 
tahty." But art is relation. One 
tone, one tint, one stroke, one act — is not art. 
It has no relation ; it leads nowhere ; it ac- 
complishes nothing ; it stands alone ; it has 
no meaning ; it is not to be regarded. But 
many related tones, — music ! Many strokes 
and colours, — a picture ! Many acts, — a life ! 
There is no such thing as an unrelated thing, 
except as a mental conception, when it is a 
mere theory, or as a determination of one's 
life, when it is a sin. A man who lives solely 
for himself has no right to live, for life is re- 
lation to others. 

What is the eye if it be not in its true re- 
lation to the body? Suppose the nerve is 
paralyzed ; the eye reflects images and light 
just as perfectly, but it is of no use — it is not 
truly an eye now, for it does not fulfill its 
purpose; it is not in relation. There is 

23 i 



24 



THE JOY OF WOEK 



danger, but / am not warned ; there is an 
opportunity, but / cannot know it — the organ 
does not communicate with me. Think of 
an eye that with its glance has brought an 
ecstasy of bliss into your life, that to you has 
been an image of what perfection of life 
might be, that has clouded in sympathy with 
your sorrow, and glowed in response to your 
joy, — that has been the mirror of your very 
thoughts. Now take it out of its setting and 
hold it in your hand, and look at it, and ad- 
mire it. Away with it ! It is a horror, a 
monstrosity ! It is not an eye ; it is a wrongs 
— it is wrung out of its place. 

So a life must be in its place ; it must keep 
in proper relation, or it is useless, purpose- 
less, without effect or beauty. 

There is often a deep truth in popular 
proverbs. We do not say, " He works like 
a wolf.'* We do not say, As busy as a 
fly,'' though it would not at times be an inapt 
expression. We do not send the sluggard 
to the cricket, for example, to be taught in- 
dustry. But we say, ''He works like a 
beaver" ; ''As busy as a bee " ; " Go to the 
ant, thou sluggard." Note that these are all 
animals that live in communities, and take 
their share of related labour. There is a 
truth in that. So God has given us varying 



A SOCIAL GRACE 



25 



gifts, not to be exercised independently, but 
for mutual helpfulness, — to some, apostles ; 
to some, teachers, miracles, gifts of healing ; 
they form a community ; they work for the 
body's sake. If any part rebelled, or if all 
had the same office, where were the body ! 
My will says, "Walk,'' my feet respond and 
I do walk, — will and feet forming a commu- 
nity of action. I command my hand to 
grasp something, the hand responds, and the 
body is served. 

Let the same principle run out into your 
social life, your church life. Think for oth- 
ers ; let your desire to help be a constant 
goad. Think less of yourself and what you 
want. Don't let things be in your lives what 
the Romans called their baggage, impedi- 
me7ita, things in the way of the foot, always 
obstructing your truest and highest useful- 
ness. Be superior to things. You are a 
servant, a clerk, a seamstress, — what does it 
matter? Work for the common good, the 
common weal, the commonwealth, as the 
people of Massachusetts put it, — the State, a 
part of the Nation ! See how far out the 
ripples of your related activity reach ! 

But," you say, can it be that my little 
bit of work, in my obscure corner, amounts 
to that ? " O beheve that it does, just as the 



26 



THE JOY OF WORK 



cogs and pivots of a watch are indispensable 
to its proper use, and then act on it. Do the 
work you must do, better than ever before ; 
let your work enter into your life. Perhaps 
you will hear the Master say, **Thou hast 
done it well ; try to do it better to-morrow." 
Watch the Master- Workman ; glimpses of 
His work will teach you in time tricks of 
the tool's true play " ; level difficulties as far 
as you can ; clear the road for somebody else. 
There are many grades of labour. 

I. First, there is slave labour — for there is 
still slave labour in the land — work that must 
be done under the whip of necessity, under 
the lash of fear, under the threat of loss of 
place, without hope, without cessation, and 
then — to have the needs of life barely sup- 
plied ! When Abraham went down into 
Egypt, he is spoken of as having had so 
many souls with him ; now we say so 
many hands." It does not look like prog- 
ress, and yet we have made progress, for 
there is now much of labour on the second 
grade, namely, 

II. Work to supply needs, to support and 
develop life, to equip the home, to beautify 
it, to furnish the mind and the aesthetic na- 
ture. This is all right and proper, and vastly 
higher than the other, but there is great 



A SOCIAL GRACE 



27 



danger of its leading to selfishness — danger 
that the muscles of contraction will be ab- 
normally developed, and the expansors will 
grow flabby ; danger that the centripetal will 
grow unduly strong and the centrifugal very 
faint and weak ; danger that acquisition 
shall rule for acquisition's sake, and not for 
self-preservation or even comfort. It is as if 
a bird should say, I have built one nest, I 
guess I will build two. Now, I wonder how 
three would be ; or, perhaps, four would be 
better,*' and — he begins to feather his nests ! 

A good way to test how far one may ac- 
quire for one's self, is to use the tri-square,— 
one arm pointing towards God, and one 
towards man. Does this act honour God? 
is it fair and kind towards my brother ? 
This will settle many difficulties. Leave 
yourself out of the reckoning, and you will 
find your life fairly adjusted to all true re- 
lationships. 

III. Then, there is work for work's sake, 
with no thought of any reward it may bring, 
but just for the pleasure of putting your fac- 
ulties into operation — work for the delight 
there is in it. This is fine ! I pity the man 
who has never experienced it. The absorp- 
tion that would render Archimedes so dead 
to all around him that they could burn his 



28 THE JOY OF WORK 



laboratory and he would not know ; the de- 
light that drawls you on into the hours of 
the night, that makes you wonder where the 
morning has flown. This is dehcious ! 

IV. But better still is the feeling that 
comes over the best workers when they re- 
view their efforts : I was irritable to-day, 
and a little lax ; I will do better to-morrow. 
I will work so as to help some one else. I 
will be more patient, more serviceable, more 
thoughtful.'* Then you reach the highest 
form of work — work for the good of others, 
— for the body^s sake. As the eye gives warn- 
ing of danger or opportunity, so be an eye 
to the body-social ; or a hand reached out in 
helpfulness ; or feet going on errands of 
thoughtful kindness. As you enter into this 
relation of mutual helpfulness, you learn more 
of the nature of God, who has revealed to 
us that He is ever thinking of us — that He 
makes all things work together for good for 
us ; He must, for the love of God must find 
expression. Love is never satisfied with 
merely being. But how about that unknow- 
able time when we were not, and He had no 
object on which to lavish His love ? This is, 
to my mind, one of the strongest arguments 
for the Trinity. Love is relation, and God is 
love. God is eternal. Love is eternal, but 



A SOCIAL GRACE 29 



creation is not. Therefore, God must have 
had that in Himself which could be an object 
of love. He must be a sodality, a fraternity. 

I bless God that we have grown out of the 
time when a man must be his own forester, 
his own lumberman, his own shoemaker, into 
the time when men band together for mutual 
helpfulness. The hunter wants vegetables, 
and the farmer does not want to be a vege- 
tarian ; and so they make an agreement : — 
** You bring me venison, and I will give you 
vegetables. You give me good measure, and 
I will give you good measure.'* But to do 
this, they must be related ; both form the bud 
of a community. One is not a community ; 
both are. We have grown out of unity into 
community. O,'' you say, ''that is com- 
munism ! " Don't be afraid of that. Com- 
munism will never rule. The deathlessness 
of the individual is the death of communism. 
I will repeat that, for in it lies the solution of 
this question of communism, — '* The death- 
lessness of the mdividual is the death of com- 
munismy The man who forces himself out 
of kindly relation with his fellow men is really 
the one who plants the seeds of communism, 
for he plants dissatisfaction, unrest, a sense 
of injustice. He says, I will get all I can, 
and give as little as I can. I will buy in a 



30 



THE JOY OF WORK 



cheap market and sell in a dear market. I 
will pay my employees just as little as I can, 
and still keep them working for me. Tm in 
business to make money. If I don't look out 
for myself, no one else will look out for me.'* 

Have you ever gone trout-fishing, and felt 
as if the man who had been there before you 
ought not to live ? He didn't care, so long 
as he got his mess of fish, who came after 
him. He was looking out for number one, 
and had left everything disordered and 
trampled and broken. No, a community of 
interests will not bring about communism. 
Did the community build houses and run 
engines and construct ships, to support the 
house-builder, the engineer, the shipwright ; 
or, did society need roofs to cover them, and 
engines and ships to take their tired feet on 
their way ? Why, the latter, of course. And 
one man especially fitted to build houses, 
finds employment, and at the same time finds 
his own support ; the engineer, the ship- 
wright, the cooper, the lawyer, the merchant, 
find society ready to support them in return for 
whatever of their specialty they give society. 

I met, not long ago, a native Cuban, who 
said, speaking of an inexcusable fraud which 
had been practiced on the people of the 
island, It is not only the present injustice of 



A SOCIAL GEACE 



31 



the fraud which troubles me, but it is the 
long years it will take to reestablish confi- 
dence/' Some American merchants went 
down to Cuba, and offered excellent articles 
at fair prices, and then, when they had suc- 
ceeded in persuading the natives to invest all 
their capital, they sent down an article so 
inferior in every way, that those small mer- 
chants were ruined. I pleaded that it was 
not an action of the American government, 
and would be set straight by them ; but, ah, 
it will be so long before there is any confi- 
dence again ! A man who could do that has 
no idea of mutual obligation ; he was living 
out of relation, out of what should have been 
his social setting, and w^as simply a rascal. 

What does all this mean to you ? This : 
try to get yourselves into sympathetic rela- 
tions with man ; and not only with man, but 
with God, from whom alone the high motive 
comes. 

I owe an apology to Emerson, — 

The hand that rounded Peter's dome, 
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 
Wrought in a sad sincerity. 
Himself from God he could not free- " 

I will improve on that,^ — 

Himself from God he would not free ! " 



32 



THE JOY OF WOEK 



No human soul that has ever known the 
bHss of that copartnership will ever again 
wish to be free from its control. 

I hope that when I am dead I shall be re- 
membered as one who worked! Heaven 
will be work, relation. As Browning has 
said, — the here is there ; the there is here ; 
not two unrelated existences, but the one a 
completion and development of the other, or, 
as Tennyson says, no less beautifully — 

And doubtless unto thee is given 
A life that bears immortal fruit 
In such great offices as suit 

The full-grown energies of heaven.** 



HI 

THE ONE-TALENT MAN 



Ma^ the memory of the consecration of His life be 
a challenge to our own. Lead us till we reach that 
timeless^ tireless, sinless y deathless state , where there 
are no more sunsets and no more night. 

Quartusy a br other, — Romans xvi. 23. 



Ill 



The One-Talent Man 

" >^^UARTUS, a brother that is all 
I 1 we know of him, and we know that 
^^^^ only through PauFs love for him. 
Gains, the host of the church, we know ; and 
Erastus, the city-chamberlain, we know. 
These are great names, but Quartus has his 
place with them — he follows in the wake of 
these great leaders. And I am glad that im- 
mediately following his name comes, The 
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you 
all.'' Quartus was contributing to that 
grace. It is only a coincidence, I know, but 
we have a right to our own little imaginings, 
and it is good to think that this obscure 
brother helped to bring about that great 
benediction, and, with others, sent a message 
of hope and love to the church which was at 
Rome. We are so used to our tattoo marks 
by which we classify men, and we think them 
so indispensable ! We insist so on labelling 
those who come under our observation ! We 

35 



36 



THE JOY OF WORK 



can have no real relations with a man until 
we have properly pigeon-holed him ! Here 
is a man who comes before us only as a 
brother, but by so coming he calls attention 
to his worth (all unconsciously to himself) and 
supplies the greatest need of the world, for 
the world needs brotherhood more than any- 
thing else. This man had his name in the 
book of life, but he passed among men un- 
marked, in the same uniform as the others, 
— the regular blue jacket — without bands. 
There is no gold braid on his clothes ; he has 
no carriage. Others ride ; he walks. But 
he is the man the w^orld needs, needs su- 
premely. Quartus may be weak by himself, 
but when he unites with the many of his clan 
he is the mightiest force in the world. What 
he chooses, shall be, — it shall come to pass ; 
and what he vetoes, no power on earth can 
make successful. 

But unhappily he himself often fails to 
recognize his power ; he and his people, too, 
often say — say because they are not leaders, 
— I have no talent ; I can do little ; my ef- 
forts count for nothing,^^ and so the work of 
the kingdom is left undone (for the leaders 
alone cannot do it),- — Vv^hen, if each would 
only use the talent he has, if each would do 
his little, nothing would remain undone of 



THE ONE-TALEXT MAN 87 



all the great mass of work the Master has 
left for His church to do. Then our united 
power would be given to 

The cause that needs assistance, 
And the wrong that needs resistance," 

and God's kingdom would come with leaps 
and bounds. 

Be ready to recognize Quartus, — he is the 
human bacillus, the life-giving germ, the 
vivifying cell from which activity and effect- 
iveness go throughout the social organism — 
the viikros bios. He is the drop of water 
which, with its countless neighbours, forms 
the mighty ocean ; the grain of sand which, 
with its fellow^s, spreads out the great sea- 
beaches ; the kernel of corn producing the 
fields of tasselled grain ; the leaf on the tree 
which, in myriads, makes the forest green ; 
the blade of grass forming, with its kin, the 
beautiful carpets of earth. He is what St. 
Francis would have called, Our little 
brother. Atom," holding in himself the en- 
dowments and enduements and the marvel- 
lous forces on which all nature depends. 
Quartus is the leucocyte, — the white corpuscle 
in the blood, the free formative protoplasm 
of the life-current. He mav have but one 
talent, he may be unknown, undistinguished, 



38 



THE JOY OF WORK 



but in union he is a mighty power, and is to be 
reckoned with. 

Perhaps you may be able to say, I stand 
with Gains and Erastus.'' Then you, too, 
have your place, — an important and trying 
place. I do not underrate it. I know that 
you bear the burden of life, that you stand 
before men where you can be seen, under a 
blaze of light and a fire of criticism, and the 
world has great need of you. The world 
needs leaders. But you are not so apt to 
neglect your duty as these less talented 
brothers, and so I appeal to them. 

Your name may be Primus or Secundus or 
Tertius or Quartus or Quintus or Sextus or 
Septus or Ultimus. Suppose it is only Ul- 
timus, will you hold back the little that is in 
you, and so lose to the world what you might 
give ? Or will you say, I am only an atom, 
and not near the cutting edge of the chisel ; 
I am not even steel, but only a grain of wood 
in the handle, but I will do what I can to 
push the w^ork along.'^ O if you only would ! 
If you have only a half-talent, or a fifth of a 
talent, then for the service of God and the 
need of humanity, I call on you to use it ! 
You draw back in your humility,*' as you 
call it. It is a shameful humility ! If you 
are as weak as you say, if you cannot inau- 



THE ONE-TALENT MAN 39 



gurate, if you cannot initiate, then cooperate. 
If you do not know how to secure interest on 
your money, go to the banker. If you do 
not know where your little will count consult 
a leader you can trust. If you are the last 
man in the line, still, stay in the line ; let us 
experiment together, and, though you be 
Ultimus, I promise you results. 

I want to speak of two things in regard to 
Quartus — his danger and his duty. 

I. His danger I have touched on ; the 
danger that the one-talent man will think his 
talent not worth using. He says, If I were 
the two- or the five-talent man, it would be 
different.'' Yes, it would be different, but 
the responsibility would not be different. 
Each one is responsible for using what he 
has, not what he has not. He is still the in- 
dividual, the indivisible, and God looks for 
returns from him, though only in proportion 
to what He has given him ; each man must 
give an account of himself to God. 

The five-talent man must give larger re- 
turn. He is seen and recognized. There is 
a force acting on him that will allow him 
neither to sit nor stand, but go. He cannot 
rest ; he must be active, he must be at work ; 
his gifts urge him on like a fire in his bones ; 
he feels an inward push, an outward pull, 



40 THEJOYOFWORK 



and he does not think so much of others, — 
there is work to be done which he can do, 
and he must do it. But the one-talent man 
is apt to indulge in that odious comparative 
degree. He will not keep his eyes on the 
positive degree of fact, or the superlative 
degree of endeavour, but constantly com- 
pares his lack with his neighbour's endow- 
ments and weakens his own powers. The 
positive and superlative degrees carry a man 
right forward, but the comparative degree 
deflects his attention, and he turns his head 
from the main issue. 

You say you amount to nothing, that you 
don't signify. Yes, you do signify or you 
would not be. You say, I come into a 
room, — no one notices me. I go out, — no 
one feels any sense of loss. I enter an as- 
sembly, but am never invited to the platform. 
When my boat goes down stream, I do not 
notice that the banks are washed out much 
by the swells.'' Now, this is his chief danger. 
If all these one-talent members would line up, 
the treasury of the church would not long be 
empty. Other men go forth to battle, but 
these men stay at home, and so the cause 
flags and at least seems to fail for lack of 
workers. There comes an appeal for charity 
—others give, but these, because they can 



THE ONE-TALENT MAN 41 



give so little, will not give anything, and the 
starving die and the naked freeze, for the 
five-talent man cannot do it all. 

This was the trouble with Meroz — just be- 
cause they would not take their share in the 
battle. Curse ye Meroz ! Curse ye Meroz 
bitterly ! Why? Because they came not 
up to the help of the Lord — to the help of 
the Lord against the mighty ! They stood 
on the hilltop and saw the confusion, and 
said, There seems to be some trouble in 
the camp, but I don't know where to go, 
and Tm not much of a soldier, and my 
weapons are not in very good order ; I guess 
I won't go into it at all.'' The true man 
would have said, There is trouble, and I 
must help. I don't know just where I'm 
needed, and I haven't much skill nor very 
good weapons, but if they are in a strait 
they may be very glad of me ; and I must 
go ! " So the cause is saved. Be sure of 
this — the commonplace is God's workshop, 
and the commonplace develops the uncom- 
mon. If there were no mountains there 
would be no valleys ; if there were no lights 
there would be no shadows. The common- 
place sun and moon and stars and sunrise 
and sunset and days and nights and seed- 
time and harvest and birds and fishes and 



42 



THE JOY OF WORK 



insects, — why, it is out of these commonplace 
things that God has made His beautiful 
world ! 

Out of the fibres and fragments and atoms 
of matter are built up muscles and tissues and 
sinews and bones and nerves, and loves and 
hates and aspirations and visions and dreams. 
The extraordinary rests on the ordinary, and 
presupposes it. Are you willing to be ordi- 
nary to support the extraordinary? ''O,*' 
you answer, I do the ordinary ; I earn my 
living ; I try to make my house beautiful.'' 
But I am not speaking of these necessary 
things. Do not even the publicans so ? I 
want you to take a step from the undebatable 
necessary to the debatable necessary. Here 
is something I might do, I could do. But I 
don't know ; / don't amount to anything." 
Don't you, really? Is that honestly your 
estimate of yourself ? Would you be satisfied 
if you knew others rated you so ? Do you 
truly rate yourself so ? 

You say, I am nothing." Well and good ; 
but bring nothing to the right side of an 
integer and it becomes ten, a hundred, a 
thousand, incalculable, innumerable increase. 
God's figures turn our naughts into bound- 
less stores of usefulness and power. He 
created the world out of nothing. He can 



THE OXE-TALEXT MAN 43 



use nothing honestly brought to Him. He is 
Creator ! He can use willing nobodies. I 
put it down on this lowest level, for I do not 
want any one to escape. For lack of the 
willing cooperation of the scantily endowed, 
the church suffers and is retarded. Because 
they are so far from Gains and Erastus, they 
refuse to arra}^ themselves at all on the side 
of the kingdom. 

II. Well, what is the duty of Quartus? 
He represents brotherhood. In one sense, 
the world needs this most, even more than 
motherhood. I had a letter from a lady re- 
cently which touched me deeply. It was 
written to enlist my interest in a young man, 
and she writes, I have tried to mother him, 
but he needs something else. It is like being 
in an orchestra to try to help people. Some 
are like the drum, and can be beaten ; some 
are like the cymbals, and you must take them 
up in your hands ; some are like the violin, 
they must be held up close to you." Is not 
that beautiful? Some cannot be mothered, 
but they can be brothered. Go out to them 
as brothers ; that you can do, and so help 
them to realize the brotherhood of Christ. 
How are they to learn to know God, else? 

The church, you know, is a kind of human 
bee-hive. The queen-bee is the most im- 



44 



THE JOY OF AVORK 



portant member of the hive. It is on her 
account and for her account that the hive ex- 
ists. But she cannot go everywhere. The 
workers must do that, — and they are often 
hindered by the drones, for there are drones, 
— but the workers, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, must do the work. They gather 
the honey and the w^ax, sweetness and Hght. 

Who then, is the man who can go to the 
bank and the counting-room and the office 
and the shop and the hospital and the work- 
room and the factory and the drawing-room 
and the concert-hall and the endless gather- 
ing places of men? Why, Quartus ! He has 
the right of way; he knows the password. 
He can go in the power of Jesus to all the 
multitudes that no one else could reach. So 
you see your calling. 

Quartus, do you see your calling ? Advo- 
cate what you know is right. Oppose what 
you feel is wrong. Throw your force against 
evil. Help the good along. No matter if 
you are put out and voted out. If a man 
has given you help, go and tell him so. Let 
him have the comfort of knowing it, and 
don^t withhold that comfort from him because 
you think he wouldn't care for praise from 
you. Stand for all things Christ stands for. 
Do you see your calling ? You are to be a 



THE OXE-TALENT MAN 45 



brother to every one needing you, a servant 
to all wanting help ; you are to sacrifice 
yourself for others — to be strong where 
others are weak — to be kind as a big brother 
to the Httle brothers for the sake of the Elder 
Brother. Are all apostles? Are all proph- 
ets ? Are all teachers ? You cannot all hold 
the places of Paul and Silvanus and Timo- 
theus, but you can all serve. Go and get 
your talent out of that hole in the earth — 
with this you can serve. Men, in your daily 
w^alks of life, you can serve the Christ. 
Women, you know this. In your homes, in 
your social circles, in your philanthropies, 
you can serve Christ. 

As into the world we go, may we truly 
present Him who died for us, and lives for 
us, and waits to receive us ! 



By James L Vance, D. D. 

Tendency: The Effect of Trend and 
Drift in the Development of Life. 
Net $1.25. 

A series of discussions of formative influ- 
ences in character construction, from a prac- 
tical and sympathetic standpoint. 

The Eternal in Man, 12mo, Cloth, 
net $1.00. 

"An appeal to the dignity of manhood, a 
call for the awakening of the highest in 
humanity."— yVi^'ze/^r/^ Evening News, 

The Young Man Four-square, In 
Business, Society, Politics, and Re- 
ligion. p^/A^^/^/^?;^. 12mo, Cloth, 35c. 

A Young Man's Make-up. Edi- 
tion, 12mo, Cloth, net 75c. 

A study of the things that make or unmake 
a young man. 

The Rise of a SouL A stimulus to 
personal progress and development. 
Jd Edition, 12mo, Cloth, net ^1.00. 

Royal Manhood, §th Edition, 12mo, 
Cloth, $1.25. 

"An inspiring book, a strong, forcible, elo- 
quent presentation of the characteristics of 
true manhood."— The Living Church. 

The College of Apostles, 2d Edition, 
12mo, Cloth, 75c. 

"A character study of the Apostles, includ- 
ing Paul. The book may be read with pleas- 
ure and -^xo^V —Christian Intelligencer, 

132 



ByCharlesF.Aked.D.D, 

The Lord's Prayer 

Its Meaning and Message To-day. 
Net, $1.00. 

A series of seven sermons on the Lord's 
Prayer showing the aptness of the requests 
to present day life. It is devotional and ex- 
pository and stimulating, but not exegetical 
nor technical. The application to modern 
conditions is exceptionally good. 

Old Events and 
Modern Meanings 

A Volume of Sermons. 12mo, cloth, 
net, $1.25. 

Nenx) York Mail said : *'His sermons prove 
that a really big man has come to town. 
They are singularly well adapted to the 
needs of the present day. They are short, 
practical, abounding in humor." 

The Courage of 
the Cow^ard 

2d Edition, 12mo, cloth, gilt top, 
net, $1.25. 

*'Dr. Aked has a freshness as of bracing 
morning wind, and a brightness and color 
and picturesqueness in style. His diction is 
fine, his thoughts flow easily, a bit of humor 
bubbles over now and then, but through all 
there runs the seriousness of a man in earnest, 
with a message to deliver. — The Examiner. 

Realities 

A series of booklets. Each, paper, net 
15c. A Ministry of Reconciliation. 
New Every Morning. Christocentric. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




0 017 578 889 A 



